Life Through Lyrics: March 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

Oh The Complications Of The Heart...

"Your stuff is good."

"Not good enough."

"Look, why not?"

"I want to draw something that means something to somebody you know. I want to draw blind faith, or a fading summer, or just a moment of clarity. Like when you go and see a really great band live for the first time you know. Nobody's saying it, but you're all thinking it. You have something to believe in again. I want to draw that feeling. But, I can't. And if I can't be great at it, then I don't want to ruin it. It's too important to me."

E. E. Cummings wrote: To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Can a person ever truly understand a piece of art. Is there even a way to fully comprehend all that is said in a simple poem.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

A Glance is never enough to capture all that is surrounding you. A song won't encompass every detail of an emotion.

A Picture only speaks a thousand words, and our line of sight only goes so far... but possibilities don't. A work of Art is the heart of an artist. It is a piece of who they are, and all we find is a meaning for us. We are a selfish people, in a selfish world. We struggle to understand another persons reasoning, or their pain. We try, but we can't because it isn't our own. We can only sympathize, empathize to our own level of experience, and even then if you were to write a song, create a sculpture, or paint a picture... you are limited to a thousand words, 3 stanzas, a bridge, and a chorus to depict an emotion not even you don't fully understand. Every time your song was sung by someone new, each person that runs their fingers along the lines of your sculpture, loses themselves in your painting... you find an aspect you didn't realize you had placed in there. It is both a great and horrible feeling. Gratitude and a happy tenderness at being able to touch someone else, mixed with a sad pang of disappointment at not catching that piece of your heart hidden in your creation before you displayed it to the world to find for you. We are a selfish people with selfish moments. A number of songs go unheard because we are all singing. No one stops to listen anymore. We are all too busy pushing to be felt, and appreciated. We strive too hard to make our artwork known, but how can we ever be expected to be discovered if we don't first discover someone else...

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. - Ayn Rand

Oh the complications of the heart...

Friday, March 13, 2009

La musique est mon poison

...I learned at a young age music speaks to all people. No matter race, age, religion. Music knows no barrier. Put a word to a rhythm and you've created a magic everyone can experience... So, Step outside yourself and... See their side, their story...

We all fall into it. We all share a connection with it. Music. It is my poison. It is the first thing I turn to after a bad day, a triumph, a spiritual moment, or a heart break. It's my refuge, my happy place.
We all label music, and often times we are labeled by the music we enjoy. But when you take away the music artist, strip off the music behind it, and just read the lyrics... you most likely wouldn't be able to tell what genre it went into. The interior of each song is where you find the heart, and soul of that song. Just like people. Look past the exterior, and what you first see and listen to their heart song... I hear a song, and I look at it from my perspective. "Oh my gosh, you have to listen to this song... it describes me perfectly!" That is when I halt and I have to remind myself that song isn't about you. It's about the artist, and what they see, but that is the magic of music. It is universal. It is something that can, and will be likened unto everyone. When you listen to a song, take a step back and try to listen to it in the way the person sitting next to you is listening to it. Watch as that song takes on a whole new meaning...
For me personally I didn't used to stop and wonder what the story behind the song was until I was about 10 years old. I grew up listening to my dad write music, writing lyrics, and figuring out the right guitar chords to express what he was saying. I remember the night I asked him what he meant by the lyrics to his song 'The Road' and the story he gave me behind it. I started to look at my daddy a bit differently. He became a bit more human to me. Listening to Not An Addict by K's Choice once again hit me with a different side of the world. Growing up in Bountiful Utah I was sheltered from just about everything. Going to K-mart was a night on the town. For the most part I sang to myself outside in the backyard up in one of our apple trees, or under the peach tree. I wrote most of my poetry beginnings hidden in this corner of my yard that was completely encased by ivy, and sun flowers that grew to impossible heights. My childhood was spent in this jungle, and all I remember is the music that filled my head. I had my own soundtrack. I didn't realize there were really drug addicts, or suicide. There wasn't such a thing as murder, or rape, or death... outside of old people. I didn't realize there was a sadness or pain outside of listening to parents fighting, or falling out of trees. Listening to this song opened my eyes to a new side of things. It wasn't until I was in high school that I realized these things were real, and to have someone who had fought a real drug addiction was incredibly powerful to me. I remember the first night I looked at a song I connected with on a high level from someone elses perspective. I had played a specific song to try and say something to the person next to me in the car. He heard the song and it made him laugh because of the context of the song. Instead of hearing my side, he heard his own. After dropping him off I replayed the song to figure out why he left my car laughing at how perfect the song was. The song was Boys Don't Cry by Plumb. I heard the song from a whole new perspective, and it changed the way he and I interacted because I finally understood why he felt the way he did... it had been an argument we'd both tried to argue, believing we were right, but being un-able to fully express why to the other person leading to more frustration... But to step out and listen to his side I understood his side and I changed what I was doing... and it made us better.
When we feel as though we aren't the only one in the world going through something, we smile. We learn. We grow. When we feel validated, and understood... We smile. We learn, and we grow. When we step outside of ourselves and are able to look at something from another's perspective we smile a little bigger. We learn a bit more, and we grow into that much better of a person. Music does all of that... it fills us with emotion, conviction, desire... no matter the genre. Music is universal... Music is my weakness. Music is my poison.

Brooke Fraser translated her pensive, Christian-themed folk-pop into massive commercial success, emerging as one of the best-selling New Zealand singer/songwriters in history via her 2003 debut LP, What to Do with Daylight. The daughter of Bernie Fraser, a onetime star with the New Zealand All Black rugby squad, she was born in Wellington on December 15, 1983, studying piano from the ages of seven to 17. At 12, Fraser composed her first original song, and a few years later she taught herself guitar. Following a breakout performance at the Christian music festival Parachute in 2000, Fraser relocated to Auckland, signing a management deal with producer Matty J and inking a multi-album deal with Sony; What to Do with Daylight followed in late 2003, debuting atop the Kiwi pop charts and ultimately going platinum seven times over. Fraser traveled to Los Angeles to record the follow-up, Albertine, which also debuted at number one when it was released in December 2006. ~ J.A. -All Music Guide